


A Drunk Mind

by AliceEddor



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Based on episode 51, Drinking, Horoscopes hold certain amounts of truth, M/M, Maybe like a week or so after, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 16:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2075484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceEddor/pseuds/AliceEddor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aquarius: Your boyfriend is trapped in an alternate desert dimension. It is difficult to say when he will return. Perhaps take up drinking while crying in a quiet room.</p><p> <br/>Taurus: Someone misses you a lot, Taurus. And even though you have nothing but endless time trapped out in a nightmarish desert hellscape, you have a hard time making a phone call longer than ten minutes. Maybe call a bit more than you do, Taurus!</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Drunk Mind

It was maybe 3? Maybe 4 in the morning? He wasn't quite sure anymore. Regardless, he hadn't slept in two days so it didn't particularly matter did it. He wasn't entirely sure what he was staring at anymore either, everything was a little bit blurry and all the lights were off so, aside from the blinking of the smoke detector, it was completely black. So black it was probably illegal. He wasn't up to date on municipal darkness laws.

Were the lights on we would be presented with the scene of a rather pathetic-looking man sitting in the middle of the living room in an apartment fit for two. There would be bottles on the coffee table, some on the kitchen island, a few scattered around the floor when he just stopped caring, and on in his hand. Perhaps that was what he was staring at. It was empty.

The rest of the apartment was a mess, as though he had completely forgone any attempt at upkeep. He was a paper hoarder, and as such there were notebooks full of stories, drafts of radio scripts, and a backlog of issues of the Night Vale Daily Journal. He normally tried to keep them orderly, as his regular living partner did absolutely nothing to keep his things organized, but there was little point now. There was no one to hypocritically complain when things got a little out of hand. To be frank, the apartment Cecil and Carlos shared looked like a twister had hit it several times before taking up permanent residence wherever the Secret Police and Faceless Old Woman hid. It came through every once and a while to make sure things looked correctly in disarray, and then returned to its hovel.

A phone rang somewhere and Cecil broke out of something of a stupor. He didn't register the tears, nor the bottle in his hand as he struggled unevenly to his feet and groped around in the darkness. A light flicked on and he jumped hard, not registering the soft voice of the Faceless Old Woman saying "You would do well to leave at least one light on before drinking yourself blind."

Leaning over the back of the couch, he found his phone under a mess of papers from last nights show.

He muttered a greeting into the receiver, a slurred and horribly mis-pronounced version of what should have been his name. Carlos, on the other end, could only take this as a warning sign. As the sun set in his universe and the sun slowly rose in Cecil's, all he could think to say was "I'm so sorry."

And he went from there. He poured out. He had been thinking a lot, he had been looking and thinking and testing and thinking and he hadn't called Cecil in days. He hadn't heard the radio show, there was no way to, but every so often he would ask Cecil to relay to him the more important segments over the phone. In short- he had heard the horoscopes. He hadn't done anything about it but he had heard the horoscopes. He carried on for about a minute, before slowly coming to a stop, puttering out with a pathetic "so... yeah."

Silence. Neither were used to silence, and both of them hated it, and they both had a hard time remembering how to break it. It was worth noting that Cecil did not drink. He was clearly drunk, bottles clinked together on the other line and then the hiss of a can opening. And then suddenly, he was screaming. Screaming so loudly that Carlos had to move the phone two inches away from his ear. He was stunned.

Carlos had only ever seen Cecil drunk once, on his birthday a few months ago. Cecil was not an angry drunk, he was chatty and giddy, just a more excitable version of him usual self. Of course, that day, he hadn't really gotten a full taste of what Cecil was like. There hadn't been a lot of talking involved that day, they had been a little preoccupied. Cecil was not an angry drunk. Of course, Carlos was not normally an absent boyfriend either.

A phrase came to mind, one that he had never really taken too seriously. It wasn't entirely true, ever really. When he was drunk he mostly just spouted scientific nonsense that meant absolutely nothing, but apparently this phrase applied 100% to the man on the other end of the phone. The man who had been exceptionally praising and flighty while in the company of Carlos was now practically shrieking what must have been at least a week of pent-up aggression and betrayal on the other end of the line. Carlos hadn't called, in fact he had totally forgotten. He had promised to call every night but he hadn't. Cecil could only forgive him for so long and of course the patience from that man was almost as endless as the desert, but under the influence there was only one phrase that could accurately describe how he was feeling.

Cecil continued to yell until his phone, which had held only 2% of its battery to begin with, shut off. He didn't notice. He would be yelling for another five minutes. Carlos did, once the line suddenly went dead. He could feel nothing but shame.

A drunk mind speaks a sober heart.


End file.
